The mental health and addiction workforce has long been plagued by shortages, high turnover, a lack of diversity, and concerns about its effectiveness. This article presents a framework to guide workforce policy and practice, emphasizing the need to train other health care providers as well as individuals in recovery to address behavioral health needs; strengthen recruitment, retention, and training of specialist behavioral health providers; and improve the financial and technical assistance infrastructure to better support and sustain the workforce. The pressing challenge is to scale up existing plans and strategies and to implement them in ways that have a meaningful impact on the size and effectiveness of the workforce. The aging and increasing diversity of the US population, combined with the expanded access to services that will be created by health reform, make it imperative to take immediate action.

Educational practices and strategies have changed very little over the years, and even emerging advances in technology have become the prisoners of traditional academic norms. Thus, while there is increasing emphasis on evaluating and aligning caregiving processes with the strongest evidence of effectiveness, there is little demonstration or role-modeling of this same expectation in either the formal or continuing educational processes of behavioral healthcare providers. This "disconnect" is a significant problem in the field. This paper addresses the urgent need to inform the education and training of the behavioral health workforce with current theories regarding the teaching-learning process and evidence about the effectiveness of various teaching strategies. The relevant theories and available bodies of evidence are described, and the implications for workforce education and training are identified.

Across all sectors of the behavioral health field there has been growing concern about a workforce crisis. Difficulties encompass the recruitment and retention of staff and the delivery of accessible and effective training in both initial, preservice training and continuing education settings. Concern about the crisis led to a multiphased, cross-sector collaboration known as the Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce. With support from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, this public-private partnership crafted An Action Plan for Behavioral Health Workforce Development. Created with input from a dozen expert panels, the action plan outlines seven core strategic goals that are relevant to all sectors of the behavioral health field: expand the role of consumers and their families in the workforce, expand the role of communities in promoting behavioral health and wellness, use systematic recruitment and retention strategies, improve training and education, foster leadership development, enhance infrastructure to support workforce development, and implement a national research and evaluation agenda. Detailed implementation tables identify the action steps for diverse groups and organizations to take in order to achieve these goals. The action plan serves as a call to action and is being used to guide workforce initiatives across the nation.

Nurse leaders can modify clinical environments, and clinical nurses can be educated to provide safe care for LBQ women and transgender men.

– Objectives: To describe the relationship between acculturation and oral health status, oral health knowledge and frequency of dental visits in subjects of Vietnamese background, 18 years or older, living in Melbourne, Australia. Methods: Oral health status was measured using the DMFS index. Oral health knowledge was estimated by responses to six specific oral preventive measures: brushing, flossing, use of fluorides, diet, and dental visits. Dental visits was measured by the number of visits in the 12 months prior to the survey. Acculturation was measured along two dimensions, psychological and behavioural, using the Psychological‐Behavioural Acculturation Scale. Data were analysed using multivariate analysis to identify the combined effect of eight predictors (age, gender, occupational status, education, reason for migration, proportion of life in the host country, behavioural acculturation and psychological acculturation) against the dependent variables. Results: The analysis was conducted on a sample of 147 subjects and showed significant interactions between the acculturation variables and three outcome measures: dental caries, knowledge of preventive measures and dental visits. Results indicated that acculturation was an important intervening variable. Psychological acculturation was strongly related to the three oral health outcomes, although the effect of behavioural acculturation was also apparent regarding dental status. Conclusions: This study offers several insights for understanding the mechanisms by which acculturation impacts oral health status. Interventions that simplify the cultural influence of immigrant groups by focusing on socio‐demographic differences and even immigration variables to define risk groups might not produce predicted changes in oral health status.